Posted
by
kdawson
on Monday July 27, 2009 @06:34PM
from the don't-think-we're-in-kansas-anymore dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that Department of Homeland Security is relying on a rushed, flawed study to justify its decision to locate the $700 million National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility for highly infectious pathogens in a tornado-prone section of Kansas. A GAO report says that it is not 'scientifically defensible' to conclude that lab can safely handle dangerous animal diseases in Kansas. Such research has been conducted up to now on a remote island on the northern tip of Long Island, NY. 'Drawing conclusions about relocating research with highly infectious exotic animal pathogens from questionable methodology could result in regrettable consequences,' the GAO warned in its draft report. Critics of moving the operation to the mainland argue that a release could lead to widespread contamination that could kill livestock, devastate a farm economy, and endanger humans. Along with the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease, NBAF researchers plan to study African swine fever, Japanese encephalitis, Rift Valley fever, and other viruses in the Biosafety Level (BSL) 3 and BSL-4 livestock laboratory capable of developing countermeasures for foreign animal diseases. According to the article, DHS lobbied a Congressional committee to try and convince them that the GAO report was flawed, and to head off any hearings on the controversy. Despite this, the House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight and investigations subcommittee plans to hold a hearing Thursday on the risk analysis."

Solves the 'not in my backyard' problem. Well, until a tornado picks up the lab and drops it in somebody's backyard...

I saw a documentary about that once. Apparently it caused some very strange mutations where the lab landed; there was evidence of quite a number of unusually small people, strange soporific meteorological events, at least one animal with increased intelligence (at the expense of certain other survival attributes) and one person with a markedly green complexion and behavior anomalies, rendered vulnerable by becoming highly water soluble. I think the pathogens were carried in eggs with a human vector.

Does anyone remember the name of that bad 70s movie of a post nuclear war America where some survivors try to make it from a missile or air force base to some safer place in a couple of 'futuristic' vehicles with triangular wheel assemblies?

I remember they had to dodge tornados at one point (they used the term tornado alley), then escape from killer bugs. Man, that movie was crap.

New Yorkers have shown their ingenuity in fizzling out countless disasters according to the action and disaster movies I've seen. Any problems that happen in Kansas, however, will eat a path of destruction until it reaches the outskirts of New York City, just before the crackpot scientist (who happens to be a close, personal friend of the president) is able to unleash his creatively-devised weapon to stop the problem, and burn it back to its core.

New Yorkers have shown their ingenuity in fizzling out countless disasters according to the action and disaster movies I've seen. Any problems that happen in Kansas, however, will eat a path of destruction until it reaches the outskirts of New York City, just before the crackpot scientist (who happens to be a close, personal friend of the president) is able to unleash his creatively-devised weapon to stop the problem, and burn it back to its core.

Disclaimer: I am a veterinarian
Currently this sort of research is done on Plum Island (http://www.ars.usda.gov/main/site_main.htm?modecode=19-40-00-00) which is conveniently separated from everything else by a nice long bridge. Very little of the disease work that goes on there has zoonotic potential, that is potential to infect humans, and those diseases that do would require transmission via arthropod vectors that hopefully don't live in New York. The worry with putting this kind of facility in Kansas is for diseases like foot and mouth disease (FMD), which cause epidemics in livestock but are harmless to people. Foot and mouth can be easily transmitted on objects and through aerosol. Outbreaks in FMD-free countries take months and cost hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up before you can convince anyone to buy your exports again. I think the idea is that there aren't too many cows on Long Island but a hell of a lot more of them in Kansas.

That's the way things work in Washington. It's not just this particular center. It's all military projects. It's NASA. It's roads and bridges. And national parks. Congress decides where everything goes based on horse-trading, and it's been that way for at least the four decades I've been alive. Did you ever wonder why they built Johnson Space Center in Houston when the launch facilities were in Florida? Or why we have, literally, hundreds of military bases strewn all throughout the country? The mili

Pork is when you spend money which doesn't need to be spent and which has no relation to the bill being voted on to benefit your own constituents. Pork is bad.

Trying to get money which is already going to be spent spent in your community is representing your constituents. Representing your constituents is good. That's what congress critters are supposed to do, represent the interests of the people who voted them in.

We've all gotten a little to free with the word pork. Republics are about representation and

Why not put it somewhere isolated that is very cold or very hot, like Alaska or the desert, where the environment would help limit the spread of any escaped pathogens, not give them an ideal breeding ground like Kansas would.

You could use the argument that researchers wouldn't want to live there, but you could say the same thing about Kansas!

Yeah, let's put the lab in Antarctica! It'll be totally safe there! Nobody would get within a thousand miles of the facility. Well, except for the all the cross-country plane trips to bring newly discovered strains from the midwest. But hey, jets are the safest form of travel, right?

You're joking at the end there, but that has at least some degree a truth to it. As a molecular biologist, I have a very negative connotation of Kansas due to their intelligent design/evolution fiasco. And as such, I would never consider moving and raising children there. I'm sure I'm an over-reactor, but I'd bet some other scientists feel the same way too.

Then perhaps the influx of scientists will result in some changes if a few of them care enough to get on the local school boards and/or at least attend the meetings and speak up. That part of this located-in-Kansas debate is the only bit that sounds win-win.

As a molecular biologist in training who went to high school in Kansas during the "just a theory" phase I have to say a few things

1. While a very boring place and more socially conservative, Kansas isn't too bad. There are a few nuts, there are a few nuts in every state of varying varieties. Most kansans don't believe in intelligent design. They don't. I have a negative opinion of kansas because they're more red and there's not much there, but it's still a bit offensive to me to hear them mischaracteriz

Kind of interesting to me how much vitriol there is specifically towards republicans (but of course more general towards midwestern/rural/etc -- though to read the comments you would think Kansas was Afghanistan...) in this thread (not saying you in particular, though I'm assuming that's what you meant when you mentioned red).

Kind of interesting how many people have talked about hating living near republicans, not liking republicans, etc...don't think I've ever heard someone say they hate to live next to de

Kind of interesting how many people have talked about hating living near republicans, not liking republicans, etc...don't think I've ever heard someone say they hate to live next to democrats. ~shrug~ so much for tolerance:-P

Seems like there are more people on slashdot, and the internet as a whole who are to the left of the political spectrum. The republicans definitely do complain about living next to democrats, they just do it at their rodeos, churches, and klan meetings.

Okay okay okay, that last one wasn't fair, and the others may have been at least questionable. My point though is that democrats are overrepresented online, so that's at least some of it right there. I've heard plenty of republicans complain about living a

It's the fact that they're moving it at all. This stuff is currently secure. It's locked up in a building that is supposed to be able to handle a dropped vial or something. It seems to my admittedly non-biotech-schooled mind that moving the stuff for a week is far more dangerous and has a much higher risk factor than letting it sit in the same place for 50 years.

I'm not exactly sure what the big deal is. Yes, tornados do happen, however -every- place has its risks. Any place located on any cost has the possibility of hurricanes, California has a lot of earthquakes, etc. And honestly the chances of a tornado hitting that exact same place and causing any sort of major damage is slim.

I agree. After all, the CDC is headquartered about five miles from downtown Atlanta. Not in the middle of tornado alley, but the area is not impervious to severe weather. And the CDC is home to some really nasty pathogens like smallpox and Ebola.
So long as the building is sufficiently hardened, I don't see the problem. We can build containment buildings for nuclear facilities that can withstand direct impacts by commercial jets; surely this proposed facility can be hardened to mitigate the risk presented

Of course, there is the small problem of transporting stuff in and out, I'm guessing some strong tornadoes could put a dent even on an armoured car.

Indeed, that is the small problem of identifying when tornadoes are likely and not moving any pathogens at that time. Tornadoes can form fairly quickly, but the conditions in which they can form don't pop out of nowhere and are well known. They delay Space Shuttle launches when they think lightning is likely (in Florida no less), and those have specific launch

Correction: any place located on the East Coast is subject to hurricanes because they travel from east to west. Yes, there's other weather issues on the West Coast as well as earthquakes in California and your point is well taken. Just wanted to correct the part about hurricanes.

Sorry, no. Some places are simply much more disaster-prone than others. The Gulf Coast is prone to hurricanes, as is much of the east coast (much more so towards the south). California has earthquakes. Kansas and Nebraska have frequent tornadoes. Any place on any coast, if you're very close to the coast, is prone to tsunamis.

But there are lots of places that aren't prone to disasters at all. North Dakota, for instance. When was the last time you heard of a disaster there? Or Montana. Here in Arizon

And some disasters are larger than others. A hurricane, for example, can devastate huge swathes of land because even a "normal"-sized hurricane is hundreds of miles across and can chug along for days or even weeks. But even the biggest, nastiest, meanest tornadoes don't get much above a mile wide and typically blow out very quickly. And those are the rarest of the rare; the combination of short lifespan and small size means tornadoes tend to be

MRI (Midwest Research Institute) is already in tornado alley at Kansas City, Missouri, just off the UMKC campus. MRI holds the largest archive of communicable pathogens in the world, down the road from the largest public-private science and technology library in the world (Linda Hall, from which library we faxed the University of Tehran [at DHS' approval] almost the entire bibliography of U.S. nuclear research a few years ago just before The Media(TM) started its 'Iran has nuclear tech' scare).

What do you expect from a region of the country that has been largely responsible for the tilting of our national diet towards corn? Teaching of religious "alternatives" to evolution? Unconstitutional "homeland" "security"? Preemptive warmaking in the name of "freedom"?

Thanks to the political primaries and low population density, a bunch of ignorant and extremely socially conservative idiots have been driving and heavily influencing our political landscape.

That's a perfect choice, its not like there are any devistating natural disasters there that involve high speed far reaching winds and could destroy the lab and spread the airborne pathogens contained within at the same time!

Wait... there is something I'm missing here but these damn ruby red slippers keep popping in my head and interrupting my thought process...

we don't get hit with tornadoes all that often. They do happen, and small towns do get properly torn-up by them, but one of those only hits every few years. Most of our tornadoes touch down in uninhabited areas, because there's a/lot/ of space that's farm fields, pastures, or forested. Also, I'd much rather be here than where hurricanes or earthquakes or forest fires are apt to hit, because tornadoes by their nature affect only a small area.

Taco, would you get around to firing kdawson already? His sensationalism was amusing during the election cycle, but it's getting really tiresome.

Before starting, I should probably mention that I actually live in Manhattan, KS and attend Kansas State University, the proposed site for the lab.

I have to start by say that not putting something here because of tornadoes is a pretty thin claim, as tornadoes are a pretty rare occurrence by all accounts, especially in Manhattan due to it's location. In the seven years I've lived here only one has even brushed a portion of the town. While for some this may be too much of a risk, there are plenty of precau

It's standard practice to at least mention what an acronym stands for before using it, especially when it's not well known. The GAO is the Government Accountability Office [gao.gov], which is apparently designed to provide some oversight to what Congress does.

My house has been sitting in Kansas since 1964. It has never received tornado damage. It was never built to survive a tornado either.
The bio-defense facility is going to be a modern and more-or-less tornado proof building. Simple construction techniques can make buildings pretty much indestructible. An earth wall with a 3-4 foot high concrete wall on top of that with a total height the same as the facility would be enough to protect the facility from even the most powerful tornadoes.
I just don't see

1. All samples have to come from "someplace else" to the middle of the continental USA, where everybody lives. Plane crash? Car crash? Train derailment? Stupid screw up (oh that could never happen, right?) Your bug is loose in frickin' Kansas. The middle of the continent. Perfect set up for it to spread.2. Any agriculture bug you're testing? You're surrounded by... agriculture! Better hope you don't have a test tube break.3. People live right outside. See #2.4. H

Clearly. FYI, but not everybody lives in the middle of the continent. The vast majority of the population lives on the two coasts, not in the middle. Kansas specifically has a relatively sparse population. A better location would be somewhere in North Dakota, where you've got the smallest population density in the continental US and the cold would also help alleviate any spread.

The little island off the NY coast is a -good- place.

Maybe so, if you ignore the fact that it's next door to the largest population center in North America.

But hey, I'm "flamebait" for suggesting that this kind of stunning stupidity is BUSINESS AS USUAL

No, you're flamebait for suggesting that any single political party, and all of its constituents, is to blame for the general stupidity coming out of the government. Not to mention that you assume the constituents of any party actually want to see stupidity from the government. That's why you're flamebait.

Actually I suggested that Democrats are the party of more government, which I take from this debacle to be a bad thing. Only government lobbying and wheeling/dealing can create situations this infernally stupid.

If you RTFA you'll discover that the governor of Kansas is indeed a Democrat, but the two Senators pushing the thing are REPUBLICANS, which only goes to show that the answer is not having the "right" party in power. The only solution is to have -less- government, with less money to create dangerous

The government has to choose between placing the lab in the geographic center (Kansas) or the population center (coasts) of the US. Both are bad for different reasons.

If remoteness is what you want, we could build it in Alaska, but that would generate all sorts of complaints about the region's geographical stability, cost, and political favoritism. You also have the issue of transportation.

Truth be told, modern construction techniques have made it perfectly safe to place buildings in tornado and earthquake-prone zones. Transport also isn't much of an issue, given that we've figured out how to transport nuclear waste in containers that are designed to withstand pretty much anything [youtube.com]. (Hazardous materials could and should be stored on-site in similarly robust containers)

Honestly, this sounds like a story cooked up to increase ratings, and get people riled up.

Actually I suggested that Democrats are the party of more government...

This is often claimed, but I have never, ever observed this to be the case. Aside from a short period of small examples early in the Clinton administration, I've never observed either party make any significant effort to shrink government. Ever since Ford (the first president I remember), every party, every administration, and every congress has been the party, administration, and congress of more government. Lip-service aside, no one is committed to anything else. You can gauge someone's gullibility by the degree to which they believe one party the other favors smaller government, rather than just larger or smaller roles in various areas (each favors an expanded role in some areas and a smaller role in others).

"If you RTFA you'll discover that the governor of Kansas is indeed a Democrat, but the two Senators pushing the thing are REPUBLICANS, which only goes to show that the answer is not having the "right" party in power. The only solution is to have -less- government, with less money to create dangerous situations like this."

Flaw: the whole thing is about a research facility designed to mitigate the risks of dangerous and extremely damaging diseases, something that's actually a good idea to have. this isn't an issue of government having too much money with which to do stupid things, or even an issue of having too much government, it;s an issue of government doing things for stupid, greedy reasons. In this case, the reason is almost certainly that Kansas wants more Federal research money to infuse the local economy (researchers need food, water, homes, clothes, cars, and all manner of other goods, plus they have to pay taxes), and given the topic at hand that is a stupid, greedy (who wants to bet me that either Senator has no ties to local construction contractors capable of taking on the government contracts this would immediately lead to? I'll just take your money now) reason.

It's not a matter of more government or less, it's a matter of better. For all that they claim to intend otherwise, the last 3 Republican presidents and have acted to increase the size and scope of government more than almost any other administrations in American history, and at least in my opinion they've done a tremendously shitty job of it. The Republicans believe that government is flawed, ineffective, intrusive and harmful to all aspects of our nation, and if you elect them, by God they will prove it. The Democrats may not do much better, but at least they don't bullshit you about trying to decrease the reach of government.

Long Island isn't known for regularly-occurring natural disasters. Kansas is.

However, your suggestion of North Dakota is a very good one. It's even more sparsely-populated than Kansas, and there's never any natural disasters there, unless you count -40 temperatures (which as you point out are a good thing for this application).

Maybe so, if you ignore the fact that it's next door to the largest population center in North America.

TFS suggests the concerns are mostly about diseases of livestock, which other than Wall Street pigs sucking up their welfare dollars from the public trough, doesn't make up a large fraction of the population of New York.

That said, only an idiot would suggest that the dysfunctional American government is a partisan problem. It is, on the contrary, an AMERICAN problem. Dunno what it is about you guys that

1. All samples have to come from someplace else no matter where you are2. Not disputed.3. People in the surrounding area will be an even bigger issue outside of the mid-west.4. That's more of a HR issue than anything else. My guess is it wouldn't be that big of an issue. How many super duper Level 5 trained people want to move out to some little island in the middle of the fucking Pacific ocean?5. I never argued that.

Oh, and you were modded flamebait because you decided to include seemingly partisan polit

>4. That's more of a HR issue than anything else. My guess is it wouldn't be that big of an issue. How many super duper Level 5 trained people want to move out to some little island in the middle of the fucking Pacific ocean?

4. That's more of a HR issue than anything else. My guess is it wouldn't be that big of an issue. How many super duper Level 5 trained people want to move out to some little island in the middle of the fucking Pacific ocean?

If it's a nice island, I imagine you'll have a much easier time recruiting great candidates to there rather than Kansas. I, for one, would be happy to live on a nice tropical Pacific island as long as there's at least a town there, and good internet access. But there's no way you'll ev

Guam has over 100,000 people on it and a busy airport full of Japanese tourists. Bad choice. Better choice would be to rent one of the uninhabitable pitcairn islands from the UK (I believe there's four islands incapable of sustaining human life on their own--just dry rocks really--but they're on a major shipping lane at least).

The kind of people who would want to work in this kind of joint are a relatively specialized field. There aren't research jobs studying highly infectious diseases jut lying about unfilled, and there aren't really all that many places you can work if you want this particular job. Yes most of the people who would have these kind of specialties could probably get jobs in related fields, but there's a certain something that doing this kind of thing has for these k

But on topic,1. yes, samples come from somewhere but they don't escape to anywhere important if you crash on an isolated island. They do if you crash in Kansas. Or drop the sample box on the runway.3. There's plenty enough people in the mid-west for an escaped bug to spread through. And isn't the point of a secure Level 5 lab to make people -safer-?4. People will be expected to -live- in Kansas and drive to work. (Thereby radically increasing the chance of spreading bugs, btw.) No

4. How many super duper Level 5 trained people want to move to Cow's Butt, Kansas?

The Manhattan, Topeka, Lawrence, and Kansas City are all reasonably close to each other, and offer fairly decent living accomodations. Lawrence and Manhattan are classic large-university cities, Topeka is the state capital (and a reasonable sized city), and Kansas City is a contiguous metropolitan area of about two million people.

There are plenty of desolate places in Kansas, but the area where this research facility has been

The way you tried to turn this into a Dems bad/ Reps good issue is incredibly boneheaded. When some nasty pathogen gets loose, I plan to blame you personally because by subverting this argument to your pathetic politics you have undercut all rational discussion that might have prevented the apocalypse. The deaths of 99% of the human race will be personally on your head, and you will be the most thoroughly damned person ever to live. The survivors will eventually make a movie, where Snake Pliskin and a time traveling robot simultaneously hunt you down, join forces in the end, attach chains to opposite sides of your head, and rip your brain in half to the cheers of the entire surviving population. You will be played by John Warner in a fat suit, and he will set the scene by portraying you eating Dalmatian puppies.

I bet you more will get done about this by people who first look to see who endorses it than who worry first about what party they associate with. Get the names of people involved. Don't even start off by describing them as 'bureaucratic' until you know a few job titles and such. See if any of them are scientists, MD's, representitives. Senators, business leaders, or lobbyists, find out who is on a federal public payroll, who is state funded, and who is on a private one, and then, if it still looks importan

DHS officials and Kansas leaders say the selection system, which began in late 2006, was always fair and open. Brownback has noted that George W. Bush was president in mid-January when his home state of Texas lost the competition.

Also, it's a democrat, Rep. Bart Stupak, that is insisting that there be a hearing on the issue...

I'm not the least bit surprised. After all, he got elected by exploiting the hate liberals had (and still have) for Bush, and by avoiding any specifics of what kind of change he stood for. To paraphrase Alan Sherman, he was elected by being all things to all people, and if he continues the way he's started, in four years he'll be called all things by all people.